MySOU Announcements Guidelines and Procedures

MySOU Announcements Overview

The MySOU web portal provides new options for managing campus communications. MySOU can be used to send out University wide (all Faculty, Staff and Students) announcements using "University Announcements". As well, targeted messages and information directed to a specific audience or MySOU Group can be received through "My Announcements". A number of Announcements Administrators are authorized to coordinate and send out official campus communications. MySOU Group Leaders can send announcements to their individual MySOU Groups.

Announcement Guidelines

Some guidelines and procedures are necessary to ensure relevance to the target audience and to avoid inundating campus community members with an unmanageable volume of communication. MySOU announcements will not replace e-mail, but rather will be used instead of e-mail for communications better suited to distribution via the MySOU web portal. MySOU Announcements is best for communications that are critical or time sensitive or significant to the entire campus community or a major constituency. These messages should provide alerts, notice of deadlines, request action, or important campus news. MySOU Announcements should not be used for communications that require a reply or archiving. When the new events scheduling system is available it will provide additional capabilities for event notification. Until then event notification should be done via e-mail, the existing Campus Events Calendar (also available on the SOU Today tab in the MySOU portal), or MySOU Groups.

Announcement Requests

Announcement Administrators have been selected to coordinate and send out MySOU Announcements. There are multiple Announcement Administrators in Academic, Student, and Business Affairs and support areas to ensure enough people on hand to promptly distribute time sensitive communication. A list of Announcement Administrators is included so that campus community members are able to identify persons they may contact for assistance in sending out announcements. Simply draft your message according to the standards outlined next and send the message via email to an appropriate Announcement Administrator.

For MySOU Group Announcements, the Group Leader has authority to establish announcement protocols for their group, and may delegate announcement authority to group members as they deem appropriate.

Announcement Standards

Announcement title is limited to 50 characters.

Announcements should be as brief as possible. Note that only the announcement title appears in the announcement channel, and users must click on a more button to read the announcement.

A point of contact/originator of the message should be included. Required information includes: name; department; University phone number or email address.

Provide an expiration date for the message when it can be removed. Expiration dates should be no longer than 7 days from date of posting.

Copyrights must be observed. The content originator is responsible for assuring compliance.

Images will slow down page display and will use up screen real estate. As a guideline, images should be used sparingly and purposefully.

Only announcements that involve health and safety or impact mission-critical operations can be reposted for the purpose of getting top billing. Reposting to correct an error is permitted. "Countdown" postings will be avoided.

Messages must adhere to guidelines provided herein, all University policies and laws. The President, a VP or an individual charged with administrative oversight of the MySOU portal will have inappropriate messages removed. If community members have concerns about any messages these concerns should be directed to an appropriate Announcement Administrator. The original poster and the poster's supervisor will be notified of violations. Authority to post may be disabled, if violation is extreme or occurs repeatedly.